The $40 Japanese Ryoba, Reviewed: Where a Pull Saw Beats Your Backsaw

The verdict first, because it is not complicated: for most hybrid woodworkers, a roughly forty-dollar double-edged ryoba is the highest-leverage hand-tool purchase you can make. It converts you to pull-stroke sawing, tracks a line more easily than a Western backsaw, and does the work of two saws — a rip saw and a crosscut saw — in one thin blade. If you are assembling a hand-tool kit or cutting your first dovetails, this is the saw to start with.

This is a judgment from the saw's geometry and the broad, settled consensus of hand-tool woodworkers — not a claim to have kept a stopwatch on it for a season. The ryoba's advantages are not a secret buried in a test lab; they fall directly out of how a pull saw works, and its weaknesses are just as well understood.

What a ryoba is

A ryoba is a double-edged Japanese saw: rip teeth along one edge, crosscut teeth along the other, so a single tool handles both the with-the-grain cuts and the across-the-grain cuts that a Western shop splits between two saws. It cuts on the pull stroke, which is the design decision that drives everything else.

Because the blade is pulled rather than pushed, it stays in tension during the cut, and a blade in tension cannot buckle. That lets the plate be extraordinarily thin — a fraction of the thickness of a Western saw plate — without a stiffening back. Thin plate plus minimal tooth set equals a very fine kerf, less wood removed per stroke, and less effort. Most affordable ryoba, including the widely recommended SUIZAN 9.5-inch, have impulse-hardened teeth: extremely hard, extremely sharp, long-lasting, and not meant to be resharpened — when they finally dull, you replace the blade rather than filing it.

Why the pull stroke matters

The difference between a pull saw and a push saw is not aesthetic; it is mechanical. A push saw compresses its blade during the working stroke, so the plate must be thick enough to resist buckling, or it must carry a rigid back that limits how deep it can cut. Either way you pay in a wider kerf and more effort. A pull saw sidesteps the whole problem by putting the blade in tension, so it can be whisper-thin, remove less wood, and start into the cut easily because you are drawing the teeth toward the line rather than shoving them away from it.

The practical upshot for a beginner is that a ryoba tracks straight sooner. Much of the struggle of learning to saw by hand is keeping a pushed blade from wandering; pulling removes a big chunk of that fight, and people cut to a line faster as a result. The tradeoff is that the fine teeth are fragile — you do not force the saw, and you do not saw into a bench dog or a hidden nail — and because they are impulse-hardened you cannot touch them up yourself. The cutting action also feels backward for exactly one afternoon, and then it does not.

Where it replaces a Western backsaw

For most hobbyists, the ryoba quietly retires several saws:

• Dovetails and tenons. The rip edge cuts tails and tenon cheeks with a thin kerf that splits a knife line cleanly, doing the job a dedicated dovetail or tenon saw would do — for a fraction of the price. This alone is why it anchors so many starter kits.
• Crosscutting small stock. The crosscut edge leaves a clean shoulder on rails, stiles, and small parts, covering the work of a carcase or crosscut backsaw.
• General bench joinery. One tool on the bench, flipped edge to edge, handles the great majority of by-hand cuts a small-shop project needs.

Where it does not

No honest review skips the limits. The blade depth caps how deep a cut you can make, so a ryoba is not the tool for very deep rips down a wide board — that is a job for a frame saw or a machine. The impulse-hardened teeth cannot be resharpened, so if part of the appeal of hand tools for you is filing and setting your own saws, a traditional Western backsaw is the more rewarding path and the ryoba will frustrate that itch. And the fragile teeth demand a gentler touch than a beginner used to muscling a hardware-store saw may expect at first.

The value case

Add it up and the math is lopsided. At around forty dollars, a ryoba does the job of a hundred-dollar-plus dovetail saw and a separate crosscut saw at the same time, while being easier to learn on. For someone building a first kit, it is not merely a good saw — it is the saw, the single tool most likely to convince a machine-first woodworker that hand work is faster than setting up a jig. The SUIZAN is the common entry recommendation because the steel is good and replacement blades are easy to find, so a dull edge means a cheap blade swap rather than a new tool. It pairs naturally with a set of bench chisels for chopping out the dovetail waste once the tails are sawn.

Living with it

Ownership is low-drama if you respect the teeth. Cut on the pull only and let the saw's own weight set the depth — pushing hard or steering the blade is how teeth get bent or snapped. Keep it clear of anything harder than wood. When the teeth eventually dull, swap the replaceable blade instead of nursing a tired one, and store the saw so the teeth are not banging against other tools. That is the whole maintenance routine.

The verdict

Buy it if you are building a hand-tool kit, cutting dovetails and tenons, or you just want a clean crosscut saw for very little money. Skip it only if you specifically want to learn to sharpen Western saws or you need deep rip capacity. For nearly everyone else, the ryoba is the gateway — the highest-leverage hand tool a hybrid woodworker can own. It anchors the starter hand-tool kit, it is the saw behind our dovetail slope guide, and keeping its companion chisels keen is a sharpening question worth reading next. For the rest of the shortlist, see our best-of picks.